Thursday, October 07, 2010

Mama Cass

From Bob Dearborn's The Olde Disc Jockey's Almanac this morning...


"October 7, 1967…After a London hotel accused Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas of running out on her bill, the singer was jailed overnight and strip-searched, forcing the cancellation of both an upcoming concert and a television appearance."


Good luck getting that visual out of your head today.

A journalist's take on "citizen journalists"

Leonard Pitts is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, nationally syndicated via the Miami Herald. How does he feel about citizen journalism?

I'm not sure exactly where he comes down on the subject, although perhaps the title of his column yesterday offers a clue: "Citizen journalists? Spreading like a cold."

It also begins with this line: "I do not believe in citizen journalism"

And before he is through, he writes this: "Citizen journalism is to journalism as pornography is to a Martin Scorsese film."

Reading between the lines, I'm guessing he's not a big fan.

The entire column is here.

Rick Sanchez apologizes


He released a full statement of apology.

TV Newser has it here.

Buzz Kilman

Newsman bluesman Buzz Kilman is returning to the station that made him famous (The Loop), at least for one morning. He'll be working alongside Pete McMurray tomorrow morning, filling in for co-host Jane Monzures.

I miss hearing Buzz on the radio. It'll be fun to hear him back at the old station again.

I haven't talked to Buzz since I did this interview with him at Chicago Radio Spotlight, but ask anyone that worked at the Loop back in the day about Buzz and they'll smile. The affection we all have for him is genuine.

Joke for a Thursday morning

This was sent to me by "MM"...

A CNN journalist stationed in Jerusalem heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time. So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.

The journalist watched the old man pray, and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she carefully approached him for an interview.

She said, "Pardon me, sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. What is your name?

"Morris Feinberg," the old man replied.

The reporter inquired, "Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"

"For about 60 years." replied the old man.

The reporter said, "60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"

The old fellow answered, "I pray for peace among the Christians, Jews and Muslims. I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop. I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults, and to love their fellow man."

The CNN reporter then asked, "How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"

The old Jewish man replied, "Like I'm talking to a wall!"

Wendy Snyder

My old pal and colleague Wendy Snyder posted this on her Facebook page, and I just had to share. That's Wendy in the background grooming herself, and well...more. Check it out. Very funny.

"Glee" cast beats the Beatles

As you can imagine, I'm a little disturbed by this news.

The cast of "Glee" now has more Billboard Top 100 hits than the Beatles.

They have 75. 75!

The Beatles only had 71. That puts The Beatles in 6th place overall. "Glee" is in 3rd, behind only Elvis Presley and James Brown. Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin are also ahead of the Beatles.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Joke for a Wednesday morning

This is from an old radio friend "DM." It's a little inside-radio, but you get the idea...

Q: What’s the difference between a Clear Channel-owned radio station and the drive-thru at McDonald’s?

A: The kid at the drive-thru is live and local.

And we will collect from next of kin

The Billy Goat

Today is the anniversary of the famous incident during the 1945 World Series when the Billy Goat wasn't allowed to enter Wrigley Field, and Sianis supposedly placed a curse on the Cubs.

If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should check out our explanation of the entire event at Just One Bad Century. It's part of This Week in 1945. 

The entire 1945 World Series is profiled, including reports from the newspapers of the day (even the original Billy Goat report), the box scores, photos, and a rare video taken during the World Series itself.

I know you don't care about the Cubs anymore this year (even I don't), and you probably don't care about the Billy Goat curse anymore (even I don't), but I worked real hard on putting together all this info from that era. It's a good read.

Eight Days a Week

On this day in 1964, the Beatles went into the studio and recorded "Eight Days a Week." I wasn't there, but there's very little doubt that it happened exactly this way...

Howard Kurtz leaves the Washington Post

I was shocked by this one. Howard Kurtz is not only leaving the Washington Post; he's leaving to take a similar job at the Daily Beast.

The media world is changing so rapidly it's almost impossible to keep up. Look at the mass exodus of talent from Newsweek in the past six months, and where they've ended up. These writers all seem to think that old media is either no longer the king, or soon won't be. I suppose that's understandable when you're leaving an essentially bankrupt magazine.

But when writers for the Washington Post and the New York Times also abandon ship, that gets my attention. Does it get the attention of those venerable institutions?

Disco Duck

On this day in 1976, the song "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees was a nationwide hit.

I'm proud to say it wasn't my fault. I wasn't in the United States for a single day of 1976. All these years, I've been bummed about it because I missed the bicentennial, but it turns out there was a bright side.

I also missed "Disco Duck."

Tribune Smackdown

Wow, this is getting good.

Thanks to Robert Feder for highlighting and pointing out this tremendous Tribune smackdown by the New York Times respected media writer David Carr.

This story isn't just about ruining the company. It's about doing it in a morally bankrupt way.

And Phil Rosenthal even wrote about the 'reaction to the article' memo from CEO Randy Michaels...in the Tribune! Phil has more guts than I would have in his situation. He even mentioned Michaels' inexplicable link to Carr's book about drug addiction in the memo.

All of it is recommended reading to anyone out there that enjoys a good media soap opera like I do.

Smoky

The final Tale from a Bad Century this season at JOBC is about the man that should have been the Cubs starting catcher for a decade, Smoky Burgess.

He was an all-star for three different teams, but none of those teams was the team that had him first...The Chicago Cubs.

Read all about him here.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Friendly advice

Jon Stewart responds to Rick Sanchez

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Hurty Sanchez
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorRally to Restore Sanity

The Anti-Gossip Website

Dr. Phil's son, Jay McGraw, is starting a new website called "rumorfix.com."

The goal of the site is to point out which rumors are true or not, and report only completely verified material.

I just thought it was funny to read about it this morning in the New York Post.

The baseball playoffs

It's too bad that Chicago doesn't have a team in the playoffs this year, but the network has who it really wants: The New York Yankees. That's the golden goose.

90% of the ads are already sold before the first pitch is thrown. 

It doesn't hurt to have Philly, Atlanta, Texas (Dallas), and San Francisco too. As long as they can avoid a Cinci-Minnesota World Series, they'll be perfectly happy.

MSNBC comes out of the closet

Today they debut their new slogan: Lean Forward.

They are openly calling themselves progressive now, and for the exact same reason Fox does what it does: It's easier to sell a well defined demo. (They admit it in the article)

This is all about the money, folks.

Ideology, schmideology.

You Bet Your Life

It debuted on this day in 1950. Groucho was incredibly great in this format. No script, just chatting and ad libbing...

News Corp donates another million

The owner of "Fair and Balanced" just donated another million to the GOP.

100% of their donations are going to one party. Fair and balanced.

Mash up madness

This is a mashup of 16 songs. It's seamless. The editing is superb, both the audio and the video--which is extremely difficult to do. And the song is pretty good too. I'm really impressed...

The Giant Killer



It's the last Great Nickname of the season at Just One Bad Century: The Giant Killer.

The Bears could have used him on Sunday night.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Chasing Pittsburgh

This captures the 2010 Cubs season pretty well...

Janis Joplin

She was found dead of a heroin overdose on this day in 1970 in a Hollywood hotel room. She had just finished recording her "Pearl" album, which was released posthumously. I couldn't find a good video of a news report from that time, but I did find this...

Da Bears

Oh what a difference a week makes.

That was brutal last night. Absolutely brutal.

Chasing Fox

New York Magazine has a piece about "the loud cartoonish bloodsport that’s engorged MSNBC, exhausted CNN—and is making our body politic delirious."

Some good scoops in this piece, including the fact that MSNBC tried to purchase The Huffington Post. They really are trying to emulate Fox as much as they can (from the left).

In my book "$everance," I had to create an imaginary liberal Fox to show how ridiculous it would look to conservatives from the other side. It was satire because it didn't exist in real life. It exists now at MSNBC, and it's not very far away from the way I portrayed in the book.

But as much as I complain about it, it seems that this is what people want. The ratings prove it. CNN, the only station that isn't going after a politically-leaning target audience, is getting crushed by both Fox and MSNBC.

Opie and Anthony

The radio duo signed another deal to stay with Sirius satellite radio.

It appears that they didn't get (or couldn't get) a competing offer to drive up the price, so they were forced to take the "take it or leave it" offer.

I wonder what is going to happen with Howard Stern. Which side will buckle there?

CNN cans Rick Sanchez

Over the weekend CNN fired Rick Sanchez for his comments about Jews in general, and specifically Jon Stewart. (Full details are here)

He called Jon Stewart "a bigot" (which, let's face it, is ridiculous), and then when the interviewer told him that Jon Stewart was a minority too, Sanchez joked about the Jews running the media.

The slam against Jon Stewart, in my opinion, seems inspired purely by Stewart constantly making fun of Sanchez. And the Jews running the media crack has an unmistakable anti-Semitic smell to it. Whenever someone suggests the Jews run this industry, or that industry, or any industry, or imply there is some sort of a Jewish agenda being pushed, it inevitably reminds people of the ridiculous claims by Hitler and his ilk, and wow, do you not want to go there.

When Sanchez said that Jews are not an oppressed minority in the media, he was right of course. But the way he said it was incredibly creepy. The Washington Post writer (Lisa de Moraes) in the linked piece above describes it perfectly when she calls it "gasp inducing."

This Week in 1945

This is the last week for Just One Bad Century this season, but we saved the best for last. This Week in 1945, the Chicago Cubs were in the World Series. Read the full account of that exciting seven game series here.

It's the last time the Cubs ever played in the World Series.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Father Knows Nothing

This week's Father Knows Nothing is posted. It's called "Story problems to explain parental frustration."

You can read it here.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Friday, October 01, 2010

Americans respect authority

Chicago Radio Spotlight tease

Tomorrow morning's Chicago Radio Spotlight will shine on WBBM NewsRadio's Pat Cassidy.

We had a nice chat about his days with WBBM, WMAQ, WBMX, and yes, his days with Mancow. I'll be posting it tomorrow morning before I take the boys to piano lessons (that's right, baby, I live a glamorous life.)

Brian Epstein

From Bob Dearborn's The Olde Disc Jockey's Almanac, this little Beatles tidbit from this day in history...

"In 1962,The Beatles signed their first real management contract with Brian Epstein. George and Paul's fathers had to sign for their sons, who were still minors. According to the terms of the agreement, Epstein was to get 25 percent of the group's earnings, provided they made more than $400 each per week."

Brian died five years later, but in that five years he just might have made a Shilling or two with that 25% cut. If my math is correct, Epstein's cut was bigger than each of the individual Beatles.

A law we all can agree on

The Senate votes to turn down the volume of television commercials.

Soon you won't need to watch your favorite show with your thumb poised on the volume button.

25 most valuable cable networks

The Daily Beast tells the story...

...in an "annoying hard to figure out where they rank without reading the whole article and looking at the picture slide show" sort of way.

Pow, right in the kisser!

On this day in 1955, Ralph and Alice debuted in "The Honeymooners." It was a different era. One of the trademark lines was Ralph threatening to punch Alice, with the line "One of these days, Alice. One of these days. POW! Right in the kisser!" Needless to say, that could never happen on TV today...

The perfect Christmas gift

This is from this morning's RAMP newsletter. It's the perfect gift for anyone on your Christmas list...

"Time to stop dreaming and start collecting -- music-merchandising company Bravado and toymaker The Bridge Direct have joined forces to launch an exclusive line of Bieber-based collectible dolls, singing dolls, assorted toys and plush doodads just in time for Christmas. The new toy line will include a $17.99 "Collection Figure," a slightly more awesome "singing figure" -- continue to breathe normally -- for $27.99, and more budget-priced items like an "In Concert Microphone" that plays two of Justin's hits along with "cool sound effects" for $14.99 and the cuddly and collectible "Signature Plush" for an allowance-friendly $7.99."

October birthdays

A hearty happy birthday to the following Cubs and Cubs-related people, some of whom are still with us, and some of whom are not. We've previously told stories about all of them. Click on their names to read about their Cub connections.



Cub fan Tom Bosley (Oct. 1)*
*Photo

Former Cub catcher Hector Villanueva (Oct 2)

Cub fan Groucho Marx (Oct 2)

Former Cub outfielder Dim Dom Dallessandro (Oct 3)

Former Cub pitcher Dennis Eckersley (Oct 3)




Former Cub infielder Norm "Bub" McMillian (Oct 5)*
*Photo

Cub fan Ray Kroc (Oct 5)

Former Cub pitcher Jay Baller (Oct 6)

Cub fan Jonathan Alter (Oct 6)

Former Cub outfielder Chuck Klein (Oct 7)




Former Cub outfielder Jose Cardenal (Oct 7)

Former Cub general manager Larry Himes (Oct 8)

Former Cub Catfish Metkovich (Oct 8)

Former Cub outfielder/1B Joe Pepitone (Oct 9)

Former Cub catcher Bill Reindeer Killefer (Oct 10)

Former Cub outfielder Lou "The Mad Russian" Novikoff (Oct 12)




Former Cub Pickles Dillhoefer (Oct 13)*
*Photo

Former Cubs pitcher Rube Waddell (Oct 13)

Former Cub pitcher Paul Derringer (Oct 17)

Former Cub pitcher Mordecai Three Finger Brown (Oct 19)


Former Cub outfielder Jigger Statz (Oct 20)


Former Cub GM Wid Matthews (Oct 20)




Former Cub pitcher Bill Lee (Oct 21)


Former Cub outfielder Jimmie Foxx (Oct 22)


Former Cub outfielder Rafael Palmeiro (Oct 24)

Former Cub pitcher Jim Brosnan (Oct 24)


Former Cub outfielder Bobby Thomson (Oct 25)




Former Cub pitcher Russ Mad Monk Meyer (Oct 25)

Former Cub third baseman Steve Ontiveros (Oct 26)

Cub fan and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (Oct 26)

Cub fan Pat Sajak (Oct 26)


Former Cub outfielder Ralph Kiner (Oct 27)




Former Cub utility man Circus Solly Hoffman (Oct 28)

Cub fan Dennis Franz (Oct 28)

Former Cub catcher Kettle Wirts (Oct 30)

Former Cub first baseman Fred McGriff (Oct 31)

Cub fan Ronnie Woo Woo Wickers (Oct 31)